Ever since I was introduced to your music, I’ve been a keen fan of your work. It was back in the day when I worked at what used to be one of the great Independent record companies, Rough Trade. I was talking about music with one Bob Scotland, (who was fiercely intellectual, Socialist, Scottish and if memory serves, rather a good bass player also!). He was already a huge fan of yours and slipped me a cassette of your mind-blowing double album “1999” – which was only released as a single album in the UK unfortunately – not that that stopped me getting a copy!

I don’t know what happened to Bob, but I know what happened to me:- a lifelong casual love affair began with your music, and just as important, the implied life style, the funk! I could feel the force!! Since then, you’ve been an important part of my life, for funky music is just so damn sexy – and there is so little of it around these days. You were always there for me when I wanted to bump or grind – or both! And I was always there for you, when you correctly told WB to take a hike, turned yourself into a symbol, formed the New Power Generation (10 years on, “Exodus” is STILL one of the GREAT albums in my life’s soundtrack) and later reclaimed your regal crown, I stood by you, defended you, once almost fought for you.

Prince, when the chance came to review your website, the NPG Music Club I was so excited. I thought it might give me a little taste of what it might have been like to visit the now defunct Glam Slam or get in to Paisley Park for one of those hot live party nights you do sometimes.

What I’m about to say might astound you because, unfortunately, the site really doesn’t do you justice. Even over broadband it’s quite slow to load, the click-on-images-not-text links idea has always been better from a designer’s point of view than a user’s – I want to know where I’m going, damn it, too busy to play guessing games, the whole site is too fussy, and finding the links I want so irritating; you really should go find whoever came up with that idea and slap them upside the head. How many people might not take the time to find their way around? Quite a lot is my guess, so the site effectively discourages people from spending time and money there. It’s also not compatible with modern html standards compliant browsers (that means Firefox if you didn’t get that) so sucks technically.

You’re still one of the greatest American musicians, play a mean guitar (along with almost every other instrument), sing like the devil and all that, but the site could be a lot more, well, fun. That said, I’m thrilled to be a member, and already paid to download 2 albums, but that’s just me. However, the track downloads are clunky and not user friendly. I followed the instructions to the letter but it all went wrong and nothing would play. It’s taken over half an hour with your tech support people, who only work Californian hours, and it’s not been sorted yet. HOPEFULLY it will all get sorted in the end.

And why should I have to download each track of a CD separately? I ought to be able to simply download the whole album in one simple operation. And why don’t you include some information? You know, who played what on which tracks, production credits, the making of, that kind of thing. Printable artwork would be nice too. So you missed out on the chance to cross-sell other stuff by keeping me current and you didn’t enhance the music. SLOPPY!

What’s that? What about the music, you say? Well, that’s another story for another day. You’re still one of the coolest creatures that ever walked this Earth but nowadays I guess we’re hearing the same music but somehow dancing to a different tune…

About Christopher Rose

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